Raw Deals & Nightmares
by amor-remanet
Summary: It's the summer after senior year. Brittany's a prophet, and her guardian angel's a douchebag, and when no one believes her, Santana hits the road, starts hunting things, and accidentally learns to love herself. Endgame Brittana; Santofsky friendship.
1. Why Does Shit Always Happen In Lima?

Aside from the up-and-down rhythm of her chest, Brittany doesn't move. No fussing in her sleep like she does sometimes, no rolling over and landing on the floor. A parade could probably come through the Chez Lopez living room and she wouldn't even snore.

And, honestly, this frustrates Santana more and more as the clock keeps ticking, as the minutes drag forward with their _tick, tock, tick, tock, we're annoying and can't just hurry up to give people who need it some goddamn peace of mind_. Brittany hasn't moved for _four hours_ and even though Santana does not _do_ the concern thing, staring at the silhouette on the couch scratches at her nerves the way Brittany's cat likes to claw up Santana's legs. Digging in deeper than it should be able to dig and _yanking_ and putting on an angelic-looking face when Santana yelps and gets pissed off.

Not that it's upsetting her or anything, this whole tedious, stupid process of waiting for Brittany to rouse. It's not upsetting her because Santana Lopez doesn't do the getting upset thing, especially not over Brittany (or at least not since Brittany chose _Artie_), and especially not when she'll wake up sooner or later. But her irritation keeps lurking around, not really doing much except existing. Just existing and _scratching_. Making her wish Rachel was here so she could dress the other girl down from here to the backstage prep area at Tits Magee's, or whatever strip club Dad and his skeezy doctor friends are at tonight. Getting Santana to feel like, no, really, she needs to find some way or other to just murder the little so-called "angel" who's supposed to be helping Brittany.

Not that he's really doing _anything_, Santana fumes as she crosses her legs. She sinks further down in the armchair and instead of wondering if Brittany's never going to wake up, thinks about how she could follow the "_angel_" into the kitchen and before he even knew anything was up, knock him out with the carving board. Then, once he was unconscious, she'd have her pick of Mom's Wüsthof knives, and he'd get stabbed in the back, and then, after Santana got all the blood off the linoleum, she could go all _Sweeney Todd_ up in this piece and cook him in some shepherd's pie or cheeseburgers or something and nobody would ever know the difference.

"You'd need a meat grinder for that!" he calls from the kitchen, somehow managing to drown out the blender with his voice. "And I'd shatter your mama's carving board before you could knock me out with anything in this house ... or on this block. Even in this _town_, unless your local library's got a secret section full of magic books and tomes on angelology."

_Fucking great_, she seethes. _He can read minds too. Just what I needed._ "The Lima library doesn't even have _Twilight_ on the shelves yet." Which Santana doesn't mind, since they_do_ have a copy of _Carmilla_ ... or did, until she _lost_ it (put it on her own bookshelf and ripped the library's stickers off) — but the sparkly vampire book's supposed to be popular or something and she guesses that she should care if Kristen Stewart's a lesbian or not—

"She isn't!" shouts the angel.

The blender dies down, finally, but that doesn't keep Santana from raising her voice to say, "You know, what the Hell kind of angel are you supposed to be with all of this ... using the blender without asking, knowing who Kristen Stewart is, not-consensual mind-reading crap?"

She expects him to get his ass out here on feet, but instead there's a _pop!_ noise and the sound of rustling feathers, and he appears right next to her, two strawberry Daiquiris in hand. Something inside Santana writhes and _hurts_ to see him smirk like he does — he can't stand much taller than she does, petite and lithe and with slick hair and an oil-spill slick grin. He's the kind of guy who'd fit in perfectly on the Cheerios ... except that he looks about thirty-five (_at least_), and maybe he's a little too pear-shaped for Coach Sylvester to let near the team, but mostly he's just useless, and smirking like he just caught his first Pikachu.

And wearing a black leather collar so tight around his neck it might as well be a tourniquet, but since he's weird to begin with, it doesn't strike Santana as _that_ bizarre. So he's a slimeball who just so happens to be into bondage, and wherever he calls home, there's some Master waiting for him. Just great for him — it's not making Brittany any more_awake_.

Santana doesn't even arch an eyebrow at him while he sits there, shaking the glass at her until she takes it, and generally just looking like he _wants_ her to punch him in the face. Sure, inside she feels like she ought to collapse and start trembling and begging him to just make Brittany better if he's supposed to be some big important angel guy — but he's not worth fussing over. Maybe he wants to think he is, but until he does something more than offer her a Daiquiri, he's just some creep who gets his rocks off by kidnapping sick girls from malls.

And taking them back to Santana's house.

And making them fruity drinks.

"I mean," Santana drawls, wrinkling her nose at him and daring him to prove her wrong about him. _Do something angelic, smart-ass._ "Come on, I mean ... you don't even have a name. And you're supposed to be important?"

He slinks down onto the coffee table — and seriously, what kind of guy _slinks_ anywhere? — and tells her, "The name's Gabriel, Archangel. And you're Santana, and you're in love with her—" He gestures at Brittany. "And you can drink that, you know. I didn't poison it or anything."

"Yeah, because I'm supposed to just trust some jerk-ass son of a bitch who think he's an _angel_." Although she's never met one before, Santana got dragged down to Saint Michael's Catholic Church for Sunday school while she was a kid and she knows that angels do not look or act like this guy. For one thing, they have _wings_. For another, they're not _douchebags_.

He shrugs. "You weren't so skeptical while I was helping her."

"Yeah, well, if you _helped_ her, then why hasn't she woken up yet?"

Instead of an answer, Santana gets two fingers pressed into her forehead and the sudden sensation of everything around her spinning. Of her stomach flailing while someone tries to rip it out of her.

And then everything feels so cold her bones start shivering.

When she opens her eyes, the living room's gone, replaced by a vast expanse of what looks like nothingness — snow and ice falling from a frozen black sky; dead, broken, gnarled trees that twist and turn in patterns Santana thinks should _not_ exist, and seem to crawl and move regardless of the absence of wind; voices crying out in pain; screams that echo around the emptiness and penetrate into Santana's chest — she looks to her left and sees nothing. To her right, nothing. Back to her left—

And Gabriel's fingers are on her forehead again.

She comes back around in the living room, curled in a fetal position on her armchair, forehead to her knees and hands clenched around the daiquiri glass, shuddering like a one-girl earthquake — everything still feels cold, even as she feels sweat start beading up on her forehead. Something worms around in her chest. Wraps around her lungs until she has to cough, until her heart wants to rip out of her ribcage because it's terrified that she won't breathe again. Her neck threatens to snap under her head, which must've gotten replaced by an anvil, but she still forces herself to look up, to meet Gabriel's gaze. And not noticing his sober expression, she forces a smirk, tries to demand to know what he was thinking ... but the only noise she gets is the slow, sticky sound of trying to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

"That was Purgatory, Foxy." His chuckle is bone-dry and bitter; with a snap of his fingers, the daiquiri changes into a glass of water, and he instructs her to drink it. She does; it doesn't help, and he keeps talking anyway. "That's where I've been since my big bro, Lucifer, got a little too stabby with me—" He must sense what she's thinking (which explains the mind-reading, she thinks to herself), because his hand snaps up and motions for her to keep quiet. "Long story, the Apocalypse was involved, here's a hint for you:_don't. ask._"

"I thought angels lived in Heaven," she points out — because Purgatory or no Purgatory, nobody tells Santana Lopez what to do. _Nobody_.

"Not dead ones." He shrugs, chugs his drink and magics up a bottle of whiskey. "So I've been kicking around there for a while, and I'm out now. And I'm never going back—"

"And Brittany—"

"Is involved in some big-time shit going on between Heaven and Hell. She's tapped into angel radio—"

"_Excuse me_—"

For a moment, he looks like he's going to answer — but then the collar tightens. Starts choking him. He hacks and gags, sounds just like Britt's cat when it has a hairball. It's almost enough to make Santana chuckle ... until she remembers that her head's still swimming, and Brittany's still passed out on the couch.

The collar chills out. Gabriel shudders and shakes his head. He sighs, takes a deep breath and then another — then another shake of his head. Must be some kind of reflexive thing.

"Look, kid," he snaps. "I can't tell you everything right now. SparkNotes version: I'm important. She's important. Looking out for her? That's my job — but there's big things going around, so ... consider yourself deputized. Make sure she doesn't wander off a cliff because the sun looks shiny or whatever's going on inside her head." He runs his fingers back through his hair, and for the first time, his expression softens. When he turns her hazel eyes up at her, they're sympathetic, not glinting like razorblades and needles.

"Pray if you or Blondie need me and for fuck's sake, I can't stress this enough—" He snaps his fingers; Santana's empty water glass turns back into a daiquiri. "Be. _really._goddamn. careful."

On his way out, the rustling feathers sound louder than before. So much so that Santana almost misses the breathy whisper of her name in Brittany's voice.

She's on the sofa in the space of a blink. The daiquiri falls to the floor behind her. The glass shatters and, vaguely, she thinks that she can just clean it up later, before Mom gets home from her book club and Dad gets back from work and strippers.

All that matters now is Brittany. That Brittany's awake, and safe, and still thinks that ballads are ducks.

Santana wraps her arms around Brittany's shoulders and buries her face in Brittany's neck, pulls Brittany so close that there's barely room enough for breath between them. Brittany asks her things that Santana can't hear right now; she just shakes her head and clings that much fiercer.


	2. Everything You Read On TV Is True

For the first few days after it happens, Santana can't even begin to think about the incident at all. She tries, sure, but as soon as she lets herself recall what the bondage-loving angel in the shock collar said, everything comes rushing back to her: the vast expanse of Purgatory stretching out before her, the unnatural chill of the winds there…

About a week later, there haven't been any more shenanigans like it, so she tries to tell Brittany what to so-called "archangel Gabriel" said, about how she's a prophet or something or 'tapped into angel radio,' and that's why she's not always on the same wavelength as everybody else, because she's special, God or somebody like him chose her, and she's on ten different wavelengths at once, none of them being like the normal people level, and other people just can't understand that.

Brittany tilts her head and gives Santana the same kind of look she pulls out in the middle of Mister Schue's Spanish class, usually right before she asks him what 'hakuna matata' or 'brouter le cresson' means. So, with a sigh, Santana tries this again, going into all kinds of depth, most of which she's making up based off the actual truth — and a big part of which revolves around an anecdote from when she and Brittany were kids, and Brittany spent her tenth birthday party sneaking off to talk to Lord Tubbington because, apparently, the cat had some amazing insight and needed someone to listen to him.

Pacing around her bedroom, losing control of Santana tries to explain how, whenever they need help or something, they're supposed to pray to some asshole angel who has some crazy dominant angel master and a fondness for shock collars. How Brittany can hear angels gossiping about which other angels look fat today or whatever, and that's why she's so constantly out of it and why most people have no idea how to talk to her. How the angels must not really know how to talk to her either, since they don't do her the courtesy of showing up and using things like _tone_ and _facial expressions_ and _posture_, they just jabber at her in her head.

How apparently there's some kind of truth in that Neil Gaiman book that Brittany's older brother keeps trying to get her to read—

"Wait," Brittany interrupts her from her seat on the bed, where she's holding Santana's decrepit old teddy bear on her lap, cuddling it like it's Lord Tubbington. "Which Neil Gaiman book?"

"Didn't he only write the one?" Vaguely, Santana knows that this is ridiculous because usually famous authors write more than one book — except JK Rowling because, seriously, just because there's seven installments doesn't mean that _Harry Potter_ isn't all one book — but she's only ever heard of one of his books, so it's the only one that matters to her.

"No…" This may possibly be the first time that _Brittany's_ been the one looking at Santana like she's stupid … or at least like Brittany's kind of shocked and hurt by the fact that Santana would say something like that about this Neil Gaiman guy. She gives Brittany a shrug and the question _so what books do you think I'm talking about?_, and in response gets: "Well, I mean, are you talking about the one about the wolves in the walls, or the one about trading your dad for a goldfish?"

She tries to interject, but Brittany's on a roll now, and she just keeps going: "Or do you mean the one about that spider god they had on that one episode of Wishbone and apparently he had sons and it's like a sequel to _American Gods_ except that Shadow and Mister Wednesday and Laura aren't in it? Or one of the Sandman books — because I've read all of those, and the unauthorized companion books, and _Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?_, and _1602_, and —"

Santana sighs. "No, Britt-britt, I mean … you know. … The one he wrote with that Discworld Alzheimer's guy who looks like some mutant love child of Santa Claus and the magical elves who raised Kurt."

Brittany frowns, and thinks about that for a moment. "Terry Pratchett?"

Santana shrugs and guesses so, because saying just about anything else would take a lot of thinking that she doesn't feel like doing right now. And it's a good thing she doesn't feel like talking, since Brittany's response to this is to clarify that she's actually read _Good Omens_, she just didn't like it as much as Big Brother Brady thinks she should have because she found the overuse of footnotes confusing — but apparently, it's about some angel and demon and magical ten-year-old who stop the Apocalypse or something. And for some reason, there's a nerd, an old lady Jezebel, four horsemen and some Hell's Angels, a crazy old guy, and a snazzy car involved. And it all happens in _England_. Yeah, right — like Santana can see _that_ happening.

(Seriously, though? With the way that Brittany can remember all of these random details, Santana can't think of a good reason why she didn't take AP English.)

The explanation of the book's so-called plot, aside, though: Santana's got more important things to worry about. Like how Brittany might be in danger. How there are some angels or demons or whoever out there who don't care that they just got done winning the McKinley glee club's first Nationals since Mister Schue was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the Earth, because they have to have some stupid angel/demon slap-fight to attend to and they can't just take it _anywhere but Earth_, and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett apparently wrote something just like it several years before it happened, except that the car was an Impala, not a Bentley, and Gabriel makes the Aziraphale angel look like a freaking _nun_.

Santana loses track of her attempts to explain this, and she can't be bothered trying to care. She can't even stop to care about the fact that she's kind of _ranting_ and, if Mom hasn't had a five-martini lunch, she could totally overhear this conversation and not only figure out that there are creepy-crawlies and angels and demons and ghosts and all kinds — but she'd probably piece together that her baby girl's a lesbian, too, and you know what? Santana is so completely _not_ ready to try and broach that subject with her fucking mother. Mom's still not over the fact that Puck stopped sleeping with the cougars he pool-cleans for so he could date She-Hulk.

… Santana just needs Brittany to understand that this is _serious_ and how fucking _scared_ she was when Brittany wouldn't wake up — how serious it would have to be for Santana to even _admit_ that she was afraid of something. How there are big things happening for the world and that's why she's hearing more things and stranger things and why she's been having all the weird, apocalyptic nightmares and why she had that freak-out at the mall and dammit, Brittany, if that Gabriel dude isn't crazy, then that means there might be some serious shit about to go down that they need to hurry up and hide from or fight or whatever because if they don't get things safe and stable somehow, then Brittany could get hurt again and Santana's just not _down with that_.

She's gasping for breath by the time she finally finishes her explanation, and she rounds on Brittany, just sitting there on the bed, like she's been for the past hour, looking about as unperturbed as she usually does.

She hugs the bear to her chest and sighs, "… huh."

"Is that all you have to say to this?" Santana snaps. "_Huh_? How can I put this in a way that'll get you to say something more than _huh_?"

Shaking her head, Brittany says, "No, no, I totally get everything you're saying, honey, I just … I feel like I've read something _just_ like this before, you know?" (The answer to that is no. No, Santana does not know what the Hell Brittany thinks she's talking about, or whatever she's going on about now.) "I mean … don't you remember the books I mean? I think they started coming out when we were younger, like 2005, or something, and then _Twilight_ got really popular and that Susie Pepper girl started drama on Jacob Ben Israel's blog about it?"

"All I remember about Susie Pepper is that she's a troll and should just go live under the freeway overpass since nobody likes her." Even though this remark gets Brittany to frown and wrinkle her nose at Santana, she can't regret it. Sure, maybe some of her snapping at people is totally uncalled for, but this time? All she's doing is telling the truth.

Brittany thinks (aloud, since the concept of inner monologue is probably lost on her right now) that Susie Pepper's probably really nice, and maybe she could be pretty if she had a better haircut and contacts and got her braces off finally. "But that's not really important, you know?" she says, and lies down on the mattress, starts tossing the bear up and catching him. "What I totally remember happening was that she read some post about that time Figgins tried to make Tina stop wearing her goth clothes because Lauren and the Robert Pattinson fan club started trying to vampire-bite people, and then Susie got all up in the comments, flaming people because the first _Supernatural_ book got published around the same time as _Twilight_ and she thought nobody appreciated them … you know?"

Once again, Santana has no idea what Brittany's talking about, and at this point, she can't bring herself to care. She stares at Brittany for a moment, shakes her head, flops down onto the bed … and quickly finds her attempt at starting up some sweet lady kisses stopped by Brittany pulling away.

The smile Brittany gives her is kind of sad, more than a bit reluctant. "Not tonight, honey," she says. "I've gotta get home anyway. We're playing five-level Connect Four for family game night. Rosie picked it out and Artie's coming over to see if he can beat her."

And then that's that — Brittany barely even waits for Santana to say 'goodbye' before it's just … off back home to her genius little sister and her stupid, _fuck-face_ boyfriend.

Santana feels like this should really end the conversation — walking out on her, after all, is a pretty serious way of saying, "honey, I love you, but not enough to follow you down _this_ path" — but it doesn't. Which doubly sucks, because in addition to losing Brittany to Stubbles McCripple-pants _again_, when Brittany shows up the next day, she's carrying a big cardboard box full of worn-out paperback books. She drops it by the coffee table in the living room, and Santana starts pawing through it — and the first thing she notices, aside from the four things Brittany set aside special for her, is that all of these books have really stupid titles.

Like, _No Rest For The Wicked_-class stupid (God, if only Santana could obliterate Bon Jovi from the face of the earth, she'd almost be willing to pretend that she doesn't care about Brittany still being with Artie). And _Route 666_ (because it's about a haunted, racist truck. And this series actually has _fans_). And _In My Time Of Dying_, _Houses of the Holy_, and _What Is And What Should Never Be_ (because oh-ehm-gee, Carver Edlund likes Led Zeppelin and he can name his books after freaking Zeppelin songs, what a totally brilliant author-guy he is). And _A Very Supernatural Christmas_ (because that so isn't the worst title for anything ever).

And then there are the forty-something stacks of double-spaced manuscript that Brittany clearly printed out and bound by herself last night, and their titles are even worse._Sympathy For The Devil_ (because obviously, everyone loves The Rolling Stones or Guns 'n' Roses). _Like A Virgin_ (because, based on skimming the first couple of pages, the plot of this one seems to involve the pretty boy brothers going after something that's _hunting virgins_, ha ha, that is probably the funniest fucking thing Santana's ever read in her_life_. … Except, you know, not). _Swap Meat_ (because it's a pun on "swap meet" and because some stupid teenage boy changes bodies with the tall brother). And _Clap Your Hands If You Believe_ (in which the brothers encounter fairies and apparently nobody makes a single decent gay joke). And _On the Head Of A Pin_ (what the Hell that's even supposed to mean, Santana has no idea).

"It's a reference to this medieval philosophy thing," Brittany explains with a shrug, and way too casually than anybody is allowed to be for talking about medieval philosophy. "I read about it for this project thing with that Sunday school class my mom teaches. I guess a lot of guys in the Middle Ages really cared about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and it's totally relevant to the plot of that one because Alastair — he's this demon who tortured Dean in Hell and taught him how to torture, too—"

"But isn't Dean supposed to be one of the heroes? What was he doing _torturing people_?"

Brittany just looks at Santana like she's gone and suggested that there's a race of evil guinea-pig-people living in Costa Rica, planning to take over the world. "… He was in Hell, baby," she says, slowly, like she's talking to a little kid. "And I mean, Alastair's supposed to be this Superman of torturing people, you know? And Dean's human, so he can only take so much …"

"Right. Whatever. What does that have to do with old dead church guys and their dancing angel question?"

"Well, the whole book starts off with Castiel investigating all these angels that are dying, so there's the how-many-angels part, but then there's this big twist ending, and everybody gets all confused about where God is and what his plan is and who can they trust and what's going on with the world … which is totally like how the whole 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' question was what people asked instead of trying to ask the big questions about life, because those are really hard and confusing, you know?"

Santana tries to think about that, but mostly she just ends up staring. "… I have no idea what you just tried to say." As soon as Brittany opens her mouth, Santana holds up a hand and huffs, "_Not_ a call to tell me more. Okay?"

Brittany nods. This doesn't stop her, though, from thinking aloud about other stuff while Santana goes through the books: "I just think, you know … you should probably read these? And then go see a doctor to make sure nothing happened to your head, alright? Because they're just books … and, sure, I know you didn't read them before, but it could totally be like that thing I read in the _Weekly World News_ that one time, about that old lady in Manitoba or wherever who had dreams about some dark-haired, green-eyed kid with glasses and a scar on his head fighting a Dark Lord and then the _Harry Potter_ books came out and she was like, 'Oh my God, what is JK Rowling doing inside my head, how could she know' —"

"Except that that lady was just _crazy_," Santana points out, not even looking up from thumbing through the one called _The Monster At The End Of This Book_. "But that Gabriel guy was real, okay? He was real, and he was standing right over there, and he _definitely said_ everything that I told you …" She points to the doorway that goes to the kitchen, and then to the stain on the rug from when she dropped his Daiquiri. "And how do you explain that!"

Brittany shrugs. "Your mom gets really clumsy when she drinks, doesn't she? She could've done it …"

"But he was _real_! He was _here_, and he said he was an angel, and _he had a shock collar on_ — I remember him, okay?"

Sighing heavily, Brittany scoots closer and leans against Santana's shoulder. "I know why you're doing this, honey," she says. "Maybe you don't think I do, but … I can totally see it and you're really not that subtle."

"Okay, genius," Santana drawls. "What am I doing here that's so not-subtle?"

Glancing up at her, Brittany has the sort of look that Santana knows all too well: it's the half-bored, half-exasperated, eyebrows raised ever so skeptically with just a hint of faux-innocence look that she gives to anyone who calls her a bitch when she's just keeping it real. "I know you don't think I'm stupid like everybody else does," Brittany says, "and that means a lot to me, sweetie, it does. And I know you think that if you can just … find some other reason for it, you can think that I'm not kind of Luna Lovegood-crazy too and that'll like, magically make me all better and make my parents stop talking about taking me to head-shrink doctors or an insane asylum or to get a lobotomy —"

"I don't think they do those anymore," Santana cuts her off, and to her chagrin, a vulnerable something slips into her voice, both kind of hopeful and kind of not. "Not unless you're like, having seizures or you really need it or something."

"Baby …" Brittany sighs again, sits up. She turns around and _very pointedly_ looks Santana in the eyes. "You're avoiding the question. We keep saying we love each other and you keep avoiding everything serious — coming out, the idea that maybe I'm just kind of crazy and that it's really okay and you don't have to try and explain it with angels trying to talk to be or anything. I mean, I'm used to people saying things about me, and I don't like it or anything, but … it's okay, you know? You don't have to try and explain it away."

For the first time in a long time, Santana has nothing to say. She just sits between the box and the coffee table, and lets Brittany reach over, tuck her hair behind her ear, and whisper, "Anyway … just food for thought, okay? Think it over for me? Please? … I wanna stay, but Artie and I are seeing the new re-remake of _I Spit On Your Grave_ with Puck and Lauren."

"… Is that the one with that Gilmore Girls guy in it?" (This response _sucks_. Santana _knows_ that it sucks. It sucks so hard that she'd rather curl up in a ball and die than admit she said it ever again.)

But Brittany manages a little smile. "No, it's the guy from Heroes."

And as Brittany slinks out the door, off to some obnoxious, cavity-inducing date to some slasher-exploitation flick with her jerk-ass boyfriend, Santana distracts herself by cracking open Britt's copy of the one called _Mystery Spot_, which she finds is dog-eared and underlined all to high Hell, with little comments in the margins, scrawled in Brittany's adorable chicken-scratch. Some of them don't make any sense — they're probably references to other books in the series, none of which she _wants_ to read.

But the one called _Ghostfacers!_ has its spine bent in several places, more of Brittany's little notes, and sure, Santana's pretty sure she could sue Carver Edlund to get compensation for the three hours she spends reading it, but it's kind of endearing, she guesses. (Not that it makes him a good writer or anything. The douchenozzle didn't give Sam and Dean last names until _The Monster At The End Of This Book_ — and Santana's not JK Rowling or anything, but what kind of author _does_ that?)

It's a Hell of a lot better than letting herself feel like she's just gotten stabbed in the fucking heart, anyway.

So, fine. Brittany's been fine with telling Santana to just come out for the past year and a half, but she doesn't want to risk getting into something that's _definitely, certainly happening_ and _absolutely, incontrovertibly important_ because she just doesn't think that she can trust Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and that skeezy Carver Edlund guy. … That's cool. And totally understandable. And Santana _definitely_ doesn't hold it against her that this happened to be the one time when Brittany's normal spaciness and willingness to believe whatever would have come in handy.

She doesn't get thoughts of Brittany snuggled up with Artie, watching _Tangled_ or _Cinderella_ or whatever Disney movie they like today, all stuck up in her head, either. And she totally does not fail to shake them out of her stupid brain while she pokes around on the Internet, looking for some idea of what the Hell she's supposed to be doing with this deluge of information. Even finding some real jackasses called the Ghostfacers, who seem to have some obsession or imagined rivalry with some other real jackasses called the Winchesters doesn't do the trick. But it does give her ideas, like how maybe she just needs to take these matters into her own hands, how maybe she doesn't know what she's doing but she can _learn_ or … something.

The Ghostfacers seem to be all about teaching people how to hunt ghosts. Their team consists of two self-appointed "leaders" (a dumpy dweeb with a neckbeard and glasses, and his equally dweeby heterosexual life partner), a fat nerd who seems to think he's anything but white and Jewish and gross, and two girls who could be doing so much better for themselves. And despite the fact that the Asian one is smart and they're both hot enough that Santana would do them, they hang out with these losers, hunt ghosts, and put all sorts of things up on YouTube. She sits through all of their videos, and takes better notes on them than she ever did in class at McKinley.

And conveniently for Santana, one of Mom's margarita housewife friends has a husband in real estate. The last time Mom hosted a booze lunch, What's-Her-Face wouldn't stop talking about how hard her poor Bernie-or-whatever-his-name-is was trying to push some place on people and how no one wanted it, how there were problems with the wiring but he'd had five different guys come look at them and the lights still weren't fixed, how there was something up with the heater that no one could explain … It's perfect. Sounds just like a poltergeist.

Sure, the Ghostfacers don't have anything up about how to _kill_ a poltergeist — just ghosts that were people at one point, and not random, unexplained spirit phenomena that get lumped with ghosts because they're mostly similar — but it's still perfect. It's proof that Santana's not crazy, at least, and if she can take it out, then Brittany will have to believe her.

So Santana waits for Friday night, when her parents have to go out to some charity BS. For the first time, she doesn't get the usual spiel about behaving herself and not burning down the house or breaking any of their expensive art things and collectible dolls, like she's fucking five or something. Go figure — the one time she actually needs to hear it, they're too self-absorbed to bother. She puts the stuff she needs in a backpack: the notes she took, a container of salt, a box of matches and a couple lighters, a flashlight, some bullshit aromatherapy candles she got for Christmas (in case she ends up needing candles; the 'Facers say they come in handy), one of Mom's digital cameras (since apparently detecting a ghost takes either that or an EMF meter, and making one of those takes time that Santana thought was better spent plotting how to say _I told you so_ to Brittany without saying it quite like that), and a Ouija board.

(Okay, the 'Facers didn't say anything about that last one, but Sam and Dean used one in _In My Time Of Dying_, and since those pretty boy dicks apparently had some kind of idea what they were doing, why not take some advice from them?)

Sun's setting on her way out the door, and Santana's just grateful that it's not ungodly hot or raining, like it was yesterday. Walking to the house doesn't take that long, but everything makes Santana jump, even a middle-school kid blowing past her on his bike. Deep breaths don't do much to steady her, or take away the gnawing feeling of shame that she's actually doing this, the knowledge that she could be back at home, looking for a job or actually working on applying to colleges or doing something people would call "productive" with her time instead of hunting a ghost, which she's pretty sure most people would just call "crazy." They don't make her nerves stop itching as she uses a credit card and a bobby pin to pick her way past the lock, and she makes a point of telling herself to never let anyone else know that a shiver courses up her back when she shuts the door.

Santana stalks through the house before anything else — she doesn't have an Eagle's Nest to set up like the 'Facers, but she can still case the joint. Nothing interesting. Not even the flickering lights that she's supposed to see — but, then again, it's only barely nighttime. The spirit might still be sleeping, or whatever ghosts do instead of sleep. She comes to the kitchen last and it's here that she sets up shop — turns on the lights but keeps them dim enough that she won't scare the thing off or create electrical interference (hopefully, anyway; she's making some of this up as the goes along); lights a candle and thinks that it smells more like Zizes after a wrestling match than rose hips and jasmine, or whatever it's supposed to be; takes out the Ouija board, and puts it in the middle of the open-house showing table.

This thing hasn't seen the light of day since she and Brittany were twelve and tried _light as a feather, stiff as a board_ but had to call it off because the chanting made Lord Tubbington have a kitty panic attack or something.

Even with the Winchesters' use of a Ouija board in mind, Santana's not sure about this — the whole thought of bringing it out nauseates her. Every motion of her fingers along the twists her lungs and stomach up in knots, and leaves her hoping that she just ate something funny. As she sits down and lays her hands on the planchette, she hopes that she's wrong about this, too. That there's no poltergeist, and no angels, and that Brittany was right: she just hit her head and started imagining things.

But Santana's already here, and there's no reason to turn tail and run. She'd be the only one who knew about it. Well, her and the poltergeist. If it's even real. But that'd be enough to drag down her reputation, if anyone found out, and Berry already did her enough damage with those cracks about how she's a coward who can dish out verbal abuse but can't take it when it's hurled back her way, and how the only job she'll ever have is _working on a pole_. Yeah, so much for glee club being like a _family_.

She brushes her teeth over her lower lip and sighs, readjusts her hold on the pointer-board. Fuck Rachel Berry and fuck her presumptions — Santana Lopez isn't some spineless, faint-hearted chicken. Fuck her full-ride scholarship to Juilliard, and fuck her two gay dads, and fuck how fucking close she is with Kurt when she's barely even bi. And fuck Blaine Warbler and Lemon Hair-Dye Sean Connery Evans, too — just because the latter's dating Santana's ex-beard and the former's dating Kurt and both of them are so _fucking charming_, which is just a mask for how fucking useless they really are.

Come to think, fuck all of them. And fuck how Dave and Brittany are the only other queers in Lima who ever actually tried to show Santana some LGBTQ-solidarity. And fuck Quinn, fuck Noah, fuck Noah's white rhinoceros of a girlfriend, fuck Tike Co-Chang-Chang, and fuck Sue Syl-fucking-vester. They'd all expect Santana to run. And that's why she can't.

That's why she has to kick this party into gear with a declaration of her intent: "Hey, ugly," she calls out, looking down at the board, then casting her gaze around the kitchen. Nothing happens … but, then, she supposes that's not really a declaration of anything, just another of her insults. "Look, I know you're here, okay? Thinking you can get away with freaking people out, keep the house for yourself just because you make the lights go all weird and shit? … Well, you can't. So if you're man enough, then swing on down here and we can talk this out, or we can cut the crap and I can kick your incorporeal ass. Your choice, ghost-busted."

Nothing happens. Santana keeps her hands on the planchette as she looks around the kitchen, searching for any kind of little differences and not finding _any_. She rolls her eyes. "Hey! Danny Phantom! If you're so scared of a stupid little human, then why do you keep going around, trying to freak them out of the fucking house?"

The lights flicker, finally, and the temperature plummets — Santana opens her mouth again to make a crack about how that's better than the weather outside, but she stops when her breath condenses in front of her face. The chill worms down to her bones. And underneath her fingers, the planchette trembles so wildly that she has to let go of it — and once she does, it starts moving on its own, spells out, _THATS NOT MY NAME_.

Oh, Jesus Christ and whatever demon cursed Finn Hudson with two left feet. This stupid ghost is going to end up crying to her about its feelings now, isn't it. With a sigh, Santana plays along, asking, "So what _is_ your name?"

The planchette moves around again, and spells out, _I DONT REMEMBER._

"Then how do you _know_ it's not Danny Phantom."

_THAT WAS ON TV._

"So you don't know your name and probably not even what you're doing here, but you expect me to believe that you know about a stupid cartoon from a few years ago?"

_MY HOUSE. OLD RESIDENTS HAD CHILDREN._

As much as she'd like to, Santana can't actually argue with that logic. This whole thing isn't playing out the way that it's supposed to, and that fact's about as comfortable as getting a root canal without any anesthesia sounds, or how it's felt trying to wear the outfit she had on when Lauren beat her ass for Valentine's Day 2011. Ghosts aren't supposed to use logic or reason or make sound arguments; they're supposed to freak out when confronted with someone who's not afraid of them, and then Santana makes up something involving salt and fire, and then they die.

_WHO ARE YOU_, the spirit spells out, and something about how the planchette scratches at the board, something about how the cold seems to curl fingers around her skin makes Santana think that the poltergeist is irritated, now.

"Santana Lopez," she tells it, voice shaking. "Otherwise known as the badass who's here to kick your ass. I think I already said that."

There are only two words this time: _GET OUT._

As soon as she snaps a _no_, everything goes by too quickly — the candle blows out, the lightbulbs explode, the rush of glass barely misses Santana's face as it screams by. Her chair rams into the wall, then rips itself out from under her. She hits the floor, tries to scramble to her feet. But the poltergeist has other ideas: it lifts her off the floor at least a foot, then drops her again. Throws her into the wall, lets her ricochet from one to another and only intervenes to make sure it hurts her. It trips her up when she tries to run, first over the rug, and then over her own feet, and finally shoves her down the front porch's stairs, keeping its hand in the events just long enough to make sure that her cheek smacks into the sidewalk. And as she drags herself away from the house, she could swear she hears something cackling — probably whatever chucks her backpack out at her.

And just her luck, Santana feels blood running down from her nose, another batch of it start pooling in her mouth and tasting warm and coppery when she swallows it. And even worse, it starts to rain.

Santana has to sit a few moments before she can even think of standing. Once she puts her mind to it, she still needs to use the mailbox at the edge of the lawn to claw her way up. She doesn't walk in the direction of home so much as she limps, each step laborious — her left ankle's fine, putting pressure on the right one hurts like a bitch but it's nothing worse than what she used to suffer through on the Cheerios. Of course, for Cheerios, she didn't have to drag herself home in rain that pounds so hard it feels like it's penetrating her skin.

And she passes houses that still have their lights on. Recognizes some of them. Thinks if there's anywhere she could stop and ask for help — Quinn's mom's place is out, for sure. There's no telling what kind of mood Lucy Caboosey's going to be in, or if Brittany will be over there with her, or if maybe they went to go play Regina George and Karen Smith and hit the town without their bitchy, lesbian, Latina Gretchen, since neither Santana nor Quinn can actually decide if they like each other or not, and it's probably easier for Quittany to go out without the third wheel.

Whatever. It's fine. Santana understands that. It's not like she goes out of her way to be awesome to people or anything. Usually, it's more the opposite.

Rachel's place is out, too. It's only even an option because Santana happens to limp past it, and it's not across the street like Mike's, which doesn't even have the lights turned on, so his parents are probably out and he's over at Tina's to boot. God, Santana could probably show up there and if Rachel even let her through the door, then she'd probably have to deal with a lecture about how she isn't allowed to bleed on the carpet.

A few blocks after passing by the angry Jewish hobbit's house, Santana practically throws herself at a stop sign just so she can have something to lean on. She takes her phone out of her pocket and once she's sure that it's still working, she flicks through the address-book, looking for anyone she can call. Most of the numbers, she stopped calling or texting or anything a year and a half ago when she, Quinn, and Brittany quit the Cheerios.

Then there are all the Glee people — yeah, like she's really going to call Puck or Finn for help. If they even picked up their phones for her now that they're graduated so-called young would-be adults (which is probably the biggest "if" in the world), then they'd probably just leave her here. Sam might be working or something, Santana doesn't know what's up ever since his family won the lottery and got their shit sorted out. Quinn's out, Rachel's out, Lauren hates her, Tina doesn't have a car and she's probably out with Mike, Mercedes is in a weird sort of limbo place where they're not not-friends but Santana can't really think she'd come out and help right now, and ditto for Kurt and Blaine. Picking out prom dresses or doing karaoke, sure, but not for just taking Santana home and avoiding their natural urge to make a scene.

And there's Mister Schue's number in there, too, from signing that stupid alcohol awareness pact. It's just lucky that she's not drunk. At least she has a reason not to call him and have to deal with some treacly sweet, completely inane, _you just have to love yourself, didn't I teach you that in glee club, just let me take you to the hospital and continue to bombard you with my stupid platitudes that don't mean anything because I repeat them so often and nothing ever changes_ speech from him.

And there's absolutely no way in Hell she's calling Brittany. _I told you so_ just doesn't taste so sweet when it's mixed with blood.

The answer reveals itself as she looks up from the phone. Her hair's plastered to her face, her t-shirt's starting to cling to her chest, and kitty-corner from her stop sign, the Karofsky house has its lights on.

It also has a bunch of cars in the driveway and parked along the curb, she sees as she gets closer, and only one of them belongs to the family. Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, if Santana happened to need help while Dave's parents are having some stupid adult wine-tasting party or whatever, she's going to puke on their rug just to say she did.

She hears voices rustling around after the doorbell rings, but at least it's Dave who comes to the door. Carrying a ceramic cooking dish with kitschy Indiana Jones potholders, wearing an equally kitschy apron that looks like someone bought it at Italy's version of a tourist trap, with the abs, cock, and top-thighs of Michelangelo's _David_ printed on it. He has a smile wider than any she thinks she's seen on him before … at least, he has it until he catches a glimpse of her. Then, he gapes at her and his brow furrows, and she can't help thinking that it's nice for _someone_ to get concerned about her.

"Is it Mike —?" she hears someone calling, just before Blaine Warbler prances up behind Dave, considers her, and gets his own displeased expression.

Santana rolls her eyes as she slumps over on the door frame, and mumbles, "oh, God, please tell me I didn't interrupt _Hobbit Rock Band_ night or something."

"McKinley High PFLAG guys' night, actually," Blaine says by way of correcting her. "Which mostly means me, Kurt, Dave, Finn, Sam, Puck, and we're still waiting on Mike. Are you…" He doesn't finish the question, just starts coming her way — and thank God, Dave shoves the dish into Blaine's hands instead and tells him to get back in the kitchen.

Once Blaine's turned his back, Santana manages giving Dave a bitter, judgmental smile by way of saying, _thank you for getting him out of here_. And to think, she almost didn't go through with the plan to make him her beard. She plays along as he coaxes one of her arms up around his shoulders, snuggling up to him enough to get some of the pressure off of her bad ankle, letting him rest a hand on her hip. And then he has to go and ruin everything — he looks back at the kitchen and shouts for Kurt to bring him his car keys.

"Noooo, damn it," she sighs. "Can't you just … you know first aid. Take me up to your room and first aid me, Mister Magic."

"Santana." Dave's concerned expression hardens almost instantly — still visibly _concerned_, but also not willing to play any games. "That insult didn't even make _sense_. We're going to the ER."

"If you take me to the ER, everybody's going to think you _beat me_."

Kurt comes up with the keys, and isn't shy about sneaking in a _what the Hell happened to you_ arch of his eyebrow before Dave tells him to clear out and meet them at the ER with some clothes that aren't soaking wet, some of Dave's or some of his sister's, or Hell, some of Kurt's if he feels like sharing. And even as Dave starts directing them out to his car, Santana raises her voice in protest, reminding him that they're going to get a lecture on teen dating violence and Dave's going to get questioned by the cops, at worst.

"Well," he says, unlocking the car and guiding her into the passenger seat. "That's a risk I'm willing to take. Get your seatbelt on."

They drive toward the hospital in almost perfect silence, aside from the mix CD she made him for Christmas playing on a low volume — and by the time they get stuck at their third red light, she can't take it anymore. She leans into the window with a huff and tells him everything that happened, how she went and got herself hurt by being an idiot, even the parts with the Blaine-sized archangel with the shock collar who seemed to think he was assigned to guard Brittany because she's a prophet or something.

"You were hunting a _ghost_?"

Disbelief. Great. Another person who thinks Santana's crazy. She nods. "Pretty sure I just said that, boy genius. … So, go on, tell me I'm a nutcase and you want to take me to a padded room instead of the ER."

"But what if I don't?"

For the first time in what feels like ages, it's Santana's turn to look at someone like they have completely lost their mind. He finally catches a break in the traffic and turns into the parking lot, whips into a space that's near the door, and once he throws the car in park, he shrugs.

"Well, come on," he says. "All of the crazy stuff that happens in the world — Hell, just all the crazy stuff that happens in this _town_ … and you think that we can explain it with nothing but science and … whatever?"

"Well, I think this is a completely new side of Dave Karofsky. Possibly one who's just as crazy as I am."

He turns the car off. "It's the side of Dave Karofsky who knows about the pretty freaky stuff in his family history. And the one who thinks you're his friend, so you're kind of stuck with him." The key comes out of the ignition; his door flies open, and he gives her a little smile. "And now he's taking you inside."

Santana rolls her eyes, and despite herself, she smiles. "Just as long as he doesn't turn into the whole new side of Dave Karofsky who gives me Schuester-flavored pep talks, we're good."

Briefly, Dave pulls a face, but he's around at her side, helping her out of the car before Santana can think his disgust is really serious.


End file.
